Sex Pistols graffiti ranked alongside cave paintings in importance

Old graffiti and drawings by Johny Rotten from 1977 on the wall of a flat where he lived in the Sex Pistols days has been ranked as with the same archaeological respect given to prehistoric cave art, scientists are saying.

It’s, of course, caused bemusement but then who is to say the original cave paintings were not bored youth drawing cartoons all those thousands of years ago.

The drawings, which are mainly cartoons of the band and their manager by Rotten, recently emerged when the house on Denmark Street became offices, are claimed to be of such importance that they should be preserved for future generations, even marked with a blue plaque on the outside of the building, said archaeologists Paul Graves-Brown and John Schofield of York University.

“This is an important site, historically and archaeologically, for the material and evidence it contains. But should we retain it for the benefit of this and future generations?” they ask in a study of the drawings for Antiquity magazine.

Most of the drawings appear to be the work of the band’s lead singer, John Lydon. One shows the band’s manager, Malcolm McLaren, clutching a wad of banknotes, another shows a spiky-haired Lydon sporting his notoriously rotten teeth.